Taking The Gaps. Phumelela’s Vee Moodley is ‘excited’ about today’s jam-packed Vaal programme
Inclement weather may have forced Phumelela’s hand to take evasive action and reschedule the Gr2 Emerald Cup from Saturday, but Executive Director: Sports Betting Vee Moodley was upbeat when interviewed earlier.. Moodley declared the Vaal weather today to be ‘top-class’ and said that he was looking forward to a great day’s racing.
Winston Churchill is credited with having suggested that a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, while an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. The enthusiastic and energetic Vee Moodley gives the impression of one of those eternal optimists, who turn adversity into a marketing – and betting opportunity! – if he has half the chance.
Let’s face it. Last Saturday was an unmitigated disaster. Africa’s richest horserace. A large expectant crowd. Sponsors and their guests. Live entertainment. And an act of God changed the complexion and the course of history in the space of two minutes. The rain and hail came down, and the feature race was abandoned. But that is God’s prerogative, and Phumelela appear to have saved face and the race.
Seeing the positive in the eleven race jam-packed programme today, Moodley reminded punters about the two jackpots on offer. The first is on races 5 to 8 and the second on races 8 to 11. Moodley cautioned punters that the racing publications and form guides originally distributed for Thursday’s race meeting are now incorrect in terms of the total number of races, the sequence of races and starting times. He said that a Computaform Update and Computaform Express Special Update Edition have been printed, and that punters who had already purchased the ‘old’ Thursday programme, could exchange it for free for a new one.
The R600,000 Emerald Cup and two other feature races not run at the Vaal last Saturday,have been added to the programme.
When taxed on the impact on turnovers of moving such a major event from its original Saturday slot, to midweek, Moodley admitted it was not an ideal situation: “ From a betting turnover perspective it is not ideal and I am of the opinion that we would in all likelihood lose more than 40% of the turnover generated on Saturday. But, Thursday 27th is technically a much better date in the month and I will be interested to see how the turnovers fare for the Emerald Cup. My rough calculations of the total Emerald pool before we abandoned was approximately R 1,3 m on the race itself. We can all monitor what pools we realize on Thursday,” he said.
To further explain the situation, Moodley added that the general rule for turnovers is that when a meeting or race is abandoned, a loss of 30% was suffered.
But in typical cavalier fashion Moodley added: “ I stand to be corrected but our decision to Include the three races into Thursday’s card and print a new book could,in my opinion, amaze us from a turnover perspective!”
New Bet Launches. Springbok Coach Heyneke Meyer
He also reminded us of the launch of the Rugby 1 on this weekend’s Springbok –Australia game at Loftus Versfeld. There are 7 result options and the minimum bet is R6. No fractional betting apllies. Moodley also said that more of the very popular Soccer 13 pools would be offered from next week. He hinted that they were also adding the finishing touches to ‘an exciting new horseracing bet’ which would be launched soon.
The R600 000 Gr2 Emerald Cup shows a few changes from the fourteen horses that went to post on Saturday. The visitors Bob ‘n Weave and In A Rush have been withdrawn and despatched to their respective home bases. In A Rush is likely to be aimed at the riches of the Cape Summer Season, and we may never know how good he would have been on the sand.
Anton Marcus, who was to have ridden In A Rush, now replaces Anthony Delpech on Meadow Magic, while MJ Odendaal takes over from Karl Neisius on Captain’s Secret.
The emergency acceptors Caryl’s Law (Derreck David) and Kiss Again (Randall Simons) have been reinstated. The Bass’ Kiss Again interestingly ran last in the Listed Hampton Handicap on Saturday, and this may provide the foundation for an interesting trick trivia question in the years ahead – that is, what horse competed in both the Listed Hampton Handicap and the Gr2 Emerald Cup in 2012?
